Local crafters helping parents going through pregnancy and infant loss

Bridget's Bunnies charity In memory of a still-born child, crafters create bunnies to offer parents suffering after the loss of an infant.

A local charity with a mission of raising awareness for pregnancy and infant loss is getting a boost of support from crafters.

Bridget's Bunnies was started nearly five years ago when Theresa Morrison and her husband's daughter Bridget was born still. The family started with a small mission to provide a handful of care packages to RVH to be given out to parents who would eventually find themselves in the same situation of dealing with pregnancy and infant loss.

"We knew that we felt very alone, like the world just shrunk right down on us when Bridget was born," says Morrison. "So our hope with providing these comfort kits was to connect with parents immediately after their babies were born still and so they could know immediately that there are other families in the community that had been through this and that those families were surviving."

The kits include things like handprint moulds, journals and a children's book, things that are both tangible reminders and necessary resources. They also have a bunny, something Morrison says is meant to help fill the void for parents returning home without the baby they were anticipating to hold for weeks to come.

Now instead of purchasing those bunnies, the group is working towards building a network of volunteers to crochet them by hand.

"We have the support because so many parents in our community know what we've gone through; they know the importance of the work they're doing," says Morrison.

Morrison says the support the group received was strong from the start, which is proof of the high number of people impacted by pregnancy and infant loss. After starting an annual run every October, which saw 350 participants in its first year, they are now averaging about 700 care packages for RVH.

While working to help provide families going through a loss with everything they need, the main mission is to raise awareness for the issue overall.

"We just want to help people understand even before they've actually had a loss that this is a possibility, not to scare people but literally just to kind of open up the conversation so that the next person who does have a miscarriage, who does have a baby born still, who loses an infant, they know that they're not the first one, they know that they're not the only one and they know where to go for support," says Morrison.